


Trust Fall

by baruffio



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, It's all fun and games, Sad John Watson, Sherlock is an arrogant twit, THAT'S INSUFFICIENT, That's entertainment, fine maybe it wasn't ALL fun and games, headcanon that could be real canon, it was occasional fun and terrible games, look Martin Freeman did a Masterclass in grieving and the show just tipped their hat and moved on, until the ultimate villain frames your friend as a fraud and forces him to commit suicide, wow I read one old fanfic and start tagging like it's 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28577328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baruffio/pseuds/baruffio
Summary: Sherlock gets miffed when he realizes that John's first response to getting injured is to call up Detective Inspector Lestrade. He decides to prove to John that he is perfectly capable of protecting John's back. But this is Sherlock we're talking about, and he can't really handle these interpersonal relationships.That's just the plot, though. This is really a story about how grief pounces and eviscerates a person.
Kudos: 7





	1. Initiating Event

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this story on ff.net 7 years ago. I came across it cleaning out my drive and was hit by that miserable between-season nostalgia. Anyway, I blew off the dust and fine-tuned some parts, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Lol, seven years ago, double spaces between sentences was still a thing. This story is an artifact.)

“Keep talking to me,” Sherlock orders as he bolts down a nondescript side street.

“I’d rather not,” John wheezes, and the sound of pain coloring his voice hits Sherlock like bright gashes on the inside of his chest. “I’m not going to pass out—“

“Prove it,” Sherlock orders sharply, hopping a fence and dancing across a few tabletops before leaping over the other side. “Keep talking.” 

“Hey!” a waiter shouts behind him, glaring reproachfully and struggling to balance a teetering tray of overpriced beverages.

“TALK!” Sherlock spits into his mobile. 

“What do you want to hear?” John asks wearily.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Sherlock says, and then he actually processes what John just said. “Just…tell me about one of your boring days at the hospital.”

“Sherlock, I don’t work at the hospital anymore. I haven’t worked there for months. How did you think I was maintaining a job while chasing you about London?”

“Right, right,” Sherlock says desperately. “Your latest girlfriend, what’s popular on television these days, how….there’s a siren on your side.” He pulls the phone away from his ear so he can stare at it, as though it will cough up more data on closer inspection. 

“Yeah,” John says. “But I’ll tell them to wait until you get here, okay? I told Greg that nothing can be touched until you get here.”

“You called _Lestrade_?” Sherlock demands, running smack into the side of a building he'd intended to clip. He can hear the sirens with his own ears now, not just through the phone.

“But he’s not going to muss your scene,” John says, and he though he's trying to sound calming, his voice is too lanced with pain to have much of a soothing effect. 

“You called _Lestrade_ before you called _me_ ,” Sherlock says, leaning against the building he had run into. 

“Yeah, well, you weren’t going to call the ambulance, were you?” John huffs. “You’ve stopped running, haven’t you? Sherlock, we can talk this out later, just don’t leave me hanging right now.”

“Tell _Lestrade_ to take you to the hospital,” Sherlock snarls. “I won’t be getting around to the scene for another hour or so.”

“Sherlock—“

Sherlock ends the call and smashes his mobile against the wall. It picks up a few scratches, but still works. He fires off a text to Lestrade— _Send updates_ —and creeps forward with soft footsteps.

He needs to see John’s injuries.


	2. Rising Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Sherlock talks very cavalierly about suicide and comes up with the worst idea.

“You’re mad because I called Greg,” John says as he collapses into his armchair and leans his crutches against the armrest. Sherlock doesn’t reply, but his eyebrows furrow and there's no way he is actually reading the book in his lap. “Sherlock—“

“I’m pleased that you were preserving the site,” Sherlock corrects. He rests his open book over his face and folds his hands on his stomach.

“Not that it mattered,” John huffs, and a hand flies automatically to his hold ribs. “Did you actually go see the place, then? Did you figure anything out?”

“Of course I saw the place,” Sherlock snaps.  _ John slumped up against a chain-link fence, hand clutching his mobile cradling his head while the other holds his sweater pressed against the slash in his ribs, looking up with a relieved smile at Lestrade, who looks worried and sympathetic and most notably  _ **_is not Sherlock_ ** . “I apprehended your attackers yesterday. They will be found in a few hours.”

“You didn’t—“

“I didn’t kill them. I can’t speak, however, speak on behalf of last night’s weather.” Sherlock bares his teeth in a smile, causing the book to ride up on his face. “The case is closed.”

“How did you figure it out?” John asks, and Sherlock knows that John is trying to weasel himself back into good graces.

“Torture,” Sherlock say simply. “Borrring. Give me your mobile.”

“Okay?” John says. He awkwardly shifts his weight about in his seat so that he can get into his pocket. He tosses his mobile across the room and it lands on Sherlock’s stomach before sliding into the cushions of the couch. Sherlock takes his sweet time emerging from under his book and retrieving John's mobile.

The call history isn’t anything unexpected. Yesterday, a call to Harry; Sherlock and Greg the day before that; Mike, Clara, and Harry the day before that; and…Mycroft…? Middling levels of interesting.

“Do you trust me, John?” Sherlock asks as he flips through recent text messages.

“I trust what I know about you,” John says.

“Don’t give me a shifty response like that,” Sherlock snaps, sitting up abruptly. His book falls off his chin and onto the ground. 

“I’m giving you an honest answer,” John says. “I trust that you’ll keep things interesting, that you’ll push me to think more, that you’d fight for my life—“

“So what don’t you trust me to do?”

“Keep me out of danger,” John says automatically.

“You like danger,” Sherlock retorts.

“I also like living,” John replies, just as fast. “Look, Sherlock, I live with you because I get this weird thrill off of danger.”

“You like helping people,” Sherlock corrects.

“And danger. You established that in the very beginning, didn’t you? I depend on you for my daily dose of danger. But I’m going to get hurt. That part is inescapable.”

“You don’t mind getting hurt.”

“That’s true,” John says. “But when I feel scared, when death feels like it’s trying to claim me, you’re not someone I naturally turn to. Not that...it’s not...it’s just…look, if I were on my deathbed, I’d want you to be there. You’re just not someone I associate with safety.”

“You don’t trust me to ensure your safety.”

“I depend on it,” John says. “How could I associate you with safety?”

“Because I know you,” Sherlock says, laying down each word like a punch. “I know your strengths and your weaknesses.”

“You test them, too,” John says. “You make me realize that I’m stronger than I think I am; that I’m weaker than I realized. But there’s always this moment, Sherlock, where I don’t know what you know—”

“—naturally—“

“You make me feel like I’m falling. Sometimes I can catch myself, and sometimes you catch me; but when something happens the way it did a couple of days ago, I don’t want that uncertainty.”

“I can keep you safe,” Sherlock declares, turning to face the wall.

“Not while putting me in danger,” John says. “And that’s why I’m still here. Let Greg be the boring clean-up, back-up man, okay? This works. I’m okay with this.”

“I’m not!”

“Well then fix it!” John barks. He clambers to his feet. “I’ve knocked aside every bit of common sense to live with you, Sherlock. I’ve given up on a lifetime dream of being a doctor, I’ve come to  _ expect _ to need my gun on my person at all times, I’ve been part of innumerable experiments, and I’ve given up prospects of ever getting a proper girlfriend. Living with you is a full-time dangerous, thankless job; I’m constantly having to satisfy Mycroft because  _ you _ can’t be bothered to have a proper conversation with your own brother—“

“Then don’t live with me—“

“Shut up!” John shouts, hobbling across the room and whacking Sherlock with one of his crutches. “I just told you that I’m okay with this, but I do need some sense of security, someone outside of this crazy house who can still understand. Greg is that—“

“His name is Lestrade.”

“Right,” John says shortly. “I’ll keep that in mind,  _ Holmes _ .” He looked around the room and, after closing his eyes for a few seconds, starts hobbling towards the door. “I’m going out for a bit.”

“Grab a coat before you go,” Sherlock says automatically. 

“Don’t tell me,” John snaps, grabbing his coat and attempting to wiggle into it for a moment before giving up and wrapping it around his shoulders.

“Grab dinner on your way back in.”

“Forage for yourself,” John grumbles.

“Thai, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m not getting you food.”

“Fine,” Sherlock says. “Do make sure you eat, though, seeing as there’s no food in the flat at the moment.”

“If you’re trying to guilt trip me into getting you food—“

“I don’t need any.”

“Good.”

A few hours later, John returns to the kitchen to find Sherlock in exactly the same location.

“I’m putting my leftovers in the fridge,” he calls out.

“There’s no room in the fridge,” Sherlock replies, not turning around to face John.

“Then I suppose you’d better eat it,” John says. He limps over to the couch to hand Sherlock an untouched take-out dinner and a set of chopsticks.

“Grab me a fork,” Sherlock orders. “You know I’ve no use for chopsticks.”

“Must of slipped my mind,” John smirks, clomping over to the kitchen. “Oh, but it looks like there aren’t any clean forks and it’s definitely your turn to do the dishes.” He turns to shoot Sherlock a look of total triumph. 

“Bah,” Sherlock grumbles, opening up the take-out box and slurping a noodle. John's posture softens.

“Sherlock, you understand what I said earlier, right?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says primly. “You use me to fulfill your appetite for danger, you’ve sacrificed things that you like in life to live with me so that I may fulfill your said appetite for danger, but you can’t trust me to get you through danger.”

“Just brink of death,” John corrects. “Otherwise, we’re fine. I didn’t call Greg first to spite you.”

“Obviously.”

“I’ll follow you to my death, Sherlock, but all of my instincts are saying to get away. It’s only in those moments—“

“I understand,” Sherlock says. “But I’ll win you over.”

“What?”

“I’m going to win your trust,” Sherlock declares, sitting bolt upright. “You’re going to trust me even if you can’t help but to do so—“

“That’s not necessary. As long as I’m thinking clearly—“

“No!” Sherlock interrupts in the middle of slurping down another noodle. “Thinking doesn’t play a part of it.”

“Never thought I’d hear that from you.”

“Context is everything, my dear Watson.” Sherlock angles a wink at him. “Intellect is nothing without a field of context. Grab me a fork, John?”

John doesn’t remember that he had planned on the leaving the dishes for Sherlock until after he has scrubbed and tossed him a fork. 

“The rest of the dishes are yours,” John says sternly as he can manage while Sherlock is enthusiastically slurping take-out in his silk violet dressing gown. “Right, then, I’m off to bed.”

“We’ll start tomorrow,” Sherlock calls, and John limps back into the living room.

“What’s this we’re starting?”

“For the next week, you’ll do your best to commit suicide.”

“And this is supposed to make me trust you?”

“Precisely.”

“Maybe,” John says, standing a bit straighter, “you misheard when I said that I trusted you fine. How is me attempting suicide changing anything?”

“And do try to be original,” Sherlock says. He sets the take-out on the coffee table and picking up his book again. “Sleep well.”

John stares incredulously at him before shrugging off his words and clomping upstairs to bed.


	3. Action Rising

John's in the middle of spreading marmalade on his toast when Sherlock scampers into the living room.

“Morning,” John says, and he's still half-looking at Sherlock as he goes to put the knife back in the tub, so he misses and smears it all over the sleeve of his jumper.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of butter-knife suicide,” Sherlock chortles. “I realize we didn’t establish any rules for this week.”

“I’m not attempting suicide.” John tries to suck the marmalade off of his sleeve. 

“Because you don’t trust me.”

“Because it’s stupid and senseless,” John says. He pulled a fuzzball out from between his teeth. “Suicide is serious, Sherlock. It’s not right to joke—“

“You’re familiar with the trust fall exercise?”

“From primary? One person falls backwards and the other is supposed to catch?”

“Exactly. The more times you fall and are caught, the more you trust.”

“I think you should stick to your sciences and leave the psychology for people who don’t advise their flatmates to _commit_ _suicide_.”

“Thus the rules,” Sherlock says. “Today’s Thursday. These first three days, you don’t do anything that would actually kill you. I win when I stop you from parodying actually killing yourself. But starting Sunday, I will be the only thing between you and death.”

“How many times do you have to win in order to win my trust?” John resumes doctoring his toast. 

“I don't have enough data to make anywhere approaching an accurate guess. It’ll be a new experiment!”

“You don’t  _ experiment _ with  _ suicide _ ,” John says shortly. “This is a crap experiment, and there’s no amount of  _ winning _ at stopping my quasi-suicide that—“

“Ah,” Sherlock interrupts. “Harry, was it?”

“What?”

“Your conservative family history and your sister a lesbian, no doubt it caused some tension. There’s a definite higher rate of suicide attempts in the queer community—“

“Yeah,” John says. “Bingo. Congratulations. You win the Einstein prize.”

“I’m sorry if I—“

“No, Sherlock. You aren’t. Not for any of the right reasons, at least. And I’m not going to do it.”

“Fall,” Sherlock says, opening his arms wide. “Fall. Unless someone in your family has sustained some terrible injury from falling backwards, in which case I do  _ most sincerely _ apologize for bringing up unwanted memories.” John throws down his knife, stands, turns, and falls backwards.

Sherlock isn’t anywhere near behind him, but he dives and manages to prop John up with one arm while grabbing the countertop so he himself doesn’t tumble. He shoves John back upright and clambers to his feet, as gangly as John had ever seen him.

“You don’t hold a patent on suicide just because you know someone who attempted it,” Sherlock says. “And the only reason I suggested it is because we were discussing my ability to save your life from factors that I have no previous knowledge of. There would be no way of ascertaining whether or not I plotted divertible assassination attempts on you, and I would like you to know past all doubt that I can.”

“Yes, but three nights ago you couldn’t. Anything in the upcoming week that you could prove—“

“You didn’t die.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“Of course I knew that.” Sherlock spins about and began pacing the room. “It just didn’t matter whether or not you were going to die when I realized…” He doesn’t finish, and John doesn’t push him. “My objectives have shifted, John. I find that I am rather more interested in keeping you whole than simply alive.”

“That’s rather nice of you, but—“

“Lestrade can’t protect you. Not from the likes of what we deal with.”

“Who the hell said I wanted protection?”

Sherlock pauses mid-step. “You’ve been defending me ever since we first met, John. From Scotland Yard, from Mycroft, and even from myself. You’ve killed for me, you’ve broken laws for me, and you’ve taken falls for me. I thought we were the type of flatmates that did that for each other.”

John irritably picks apart his now-cold toast. Sherlock still isn’t moving.

“So instead of just saying thanks, you want me to try to kill myself so that you can level the score?”

“Stop thinking about it as suicide, then. I’m asking you to assassinate yourself, and I’m promising that I will prevent all assassinations from actually taking place. It doesn’t need to become personal. It’s a trust exercise. And it has nothing to do with paying you back, it has to do with how we work together.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Because the idea of suicide is uncomfortable or because you don’t think that I could prevent it?” He spins about and stares at John. John glares back.

“I’ll do it,” John says. “Your suicide game.” The corners of Sherlock’s mouth twitch upwards and he moves to the window. He peeks through the curtain and is about to turn back around when John asks, “Have you, er, ever?” 

Sherlock freezes.

“You’ll have to be more clear, John."

“Ever thought about, you know, offing yourself?”

“Everyone does sooner or later,” Sherlock says. He's still staring out the window.

“You know where I’m going with this.” John takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “Did you ever attempt anything?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Psychology’s not really your area, you’re much more dedicated to the hard sciences, and you scoffed at my psychiatrist—you know some of psychology, but you’ve hardly used it in the cases. Because it’s personal, right? And Mycroft’s ever keeping an eye on you, but you eat and sleep just fine when no one’s looking. There’s also a bit of correlation between drug use and depression—”

“Very good deductions.”

“That didn’t answer my question. Have you?”

“On occasion.” Sherlock turns around and bares his teeth in the facsimile of a grin. “Not recently, of course. I’m entirely stable, and there’s no need to have some heart-to-heart. You said you would participate, so there’s no need to air out old events.”

“Right,” John says. “Well, for the record, I’m glad it didn’t ever work out the way you wanted.”

Sherlock’s smile softens into something real. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good heavens, there's a lot of people smiling in very specific ways.


	4. Paradigm Shift

John knew hundreds of ways to bring about death, and sitting at the foot of his bed, he can think of at least a dozen ways to kill himself before Sherlock would have the time to make it up the stairs.

Sherlock’s game is absolute rubbish. It’s a new level of bored that John doesn’t particularly want to mess with. 

John groans and flops back on his bed. Sherlock has asked for more than he can handle, and he will become absolutely unbearable to live with after being proven wrong. No point in delaying the inevitable. He heaves himself right back to his feet and totters down the stairs. Sherlock is immersed with an unpleasantly odorous experiment involving burning differently treated hair.

“Bang bang,” John says coolly, and Sherlock looks up to see John leveling his Browning at him.

“You’re the quarry,” Sherlock reminds. He lays a match into a bowl of platinum blond hair.

“So I wait for John to come home,” John shrugs. He drops his gun onto the coffee table and sinks into his armchair. “Point being, good luck being of any assistance to me when you’re dead.”

“Assuming that I die instantly. I assure you had I been fatally shot, my assailant would not walk out of this room alive.” As the hair in the bowl finished burning, the flame burnt into embers. 

“Your aim’s that good, is it?”

“I can concoct a bomb in a handful of seconds,” Sherlock drawled, scribbling something down in his experiment log. “Accuracy becomes less important.”

“And if your attacker’s not alone? There’s others involved, others who aren’t here?”

“You’re assuming that they’ve entered the room without my being prepared for it.” Sherlock pours ashes into a beaker and stirs. “I’ve catalogued yours and Mrs. Hudson’s movements. The only way that my assailant would get away with anything is if it were either you or Mrs. Hudson, in which case it would likely be entirely unnecessary for me to warn you. Mrs. Hudson dotes on you.” 

“Looks who’s talking!”

“So unless Mrs. Hudson is member of the criminal underground, home invasion isn’t the greatest threat.” Sherlock looks up from his notes. “I admit I was hoping for more complicated attempts—“

“I could’ve offed myself hundreds of times already in the past ten minutes.” John flicks open a newspaper just so he has something to do with his hands.

“Oh?” Sherlock says. 

And John wants to scare him--just a smidge--so he fires into the wall behind Sherlock’s head. The gun’s barrel clicks empty and Sherlock levels a grin at him. 

“There are, of course, two ways to play this game.” Sherlock adds a sprig of bright blue hair into another bowl and strikes another match. “One—and the less efficient of the two—is the suicide watch. This would be highly impractical and remarkably limiting. The second is the one in which you would plan and carry out murder attempts. I imagine it would be slightly more relevant.”

“We can’t do both?”

“You wouldn’t be able to devise a murder attempt while under suicide watch.”

“Really, now?”

Sherlock snorts. “Really." His eyes briefly meet John's. "My suicide watch is almost directly derived from Mycroft.”

“I guess it’ll be the second, then. I’m getting strong vibes in that direction." John folds his paper down. “Let’s say I pulled a Moriarty. Snipers.”

“Snipers are a mentality, a threat. As long as you abide by the rules of the game, they are mere pieces. Once the game is understood, their role can be minimalized and potentially eliminated.”

“You wouldn’t last a week in the army.”

“I would never voluntarily or intentionally enter an organization that required me to shave my head.”

John giggles at the thought and Sherlock quirks a smile. 

That Friday, Moriarty spills open a prison, empties a bank, and crowns himself in Buckingham Palace.


	5. Denouement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter picks up right after the events of the Reichenback Fall episode.

_"You even got Mycroft." John crouches in front of Sherlock's name and pushes his fingers as hard as he can into the letters on the gravestone. He tries to push through the stone, through the terrible and utter silence._

_There's no one else at the cemetery, and John's composure slips. His hand draws back, curls into a tight fist, and he plants the most solid punch he can mange into the center of the stone._

_It shatters like a fragile pane of glass. John's hand is bleeding profusely--nothing he can't bandage up back at the flat--and Sherlock's name lies in pieces over the flower-strewn grass._

_"Unnecessary," Sherlock comments from behind John, and John starts breathing again. He stands up and thumps Sherlock's shoulder. Some of the blood from his cuts rub off onto Sherlock's as-ever immaculate shirt._

_"You're such a diva," John says._

_"You knew I wasn't dead."_

_"Doesn't matter. Don't do that again."_

_John glares at Sherlock because this part is actually important, and Sherlock nods once. Of course he understands everything that John is silently screaming at him._

_**Don't leave me again.** _

Mrs. Hudson offers to take care of the dishes and ongoing experiments, but John refuses. He doesn't actually do any dishes the first week, but by halfway through the second week, he hits a new all-time low and turns on the flat with a sparkling clean rage.

He fills in the notes the last experiments because it feels wrong to leave it unfinished. 

There's so much unfinished. 

John considers trying several times. Of course he does. How could he not? He's starving for any sign of Sherlock being not-dead. The thing is, if Sherlock really is...not-alive...there's no takebacks.

But he's so desperate. He has to try.

John's only just mixed up a medicine cabinet cocktail when the doorbell rings and Mycroft, with a pinched mouth and weary eyes, asks John how his sister is doing. By the time Mycroft releases John from interrogation about Harry, his cup is rinsed and upside down in the drying rack. John scoffs at the clean cup. Definitely not the work of Sherlock.

It's also not the work of Sherlock when, one morning, John comes down to find the kitchen fully restocked. He wouldn't have--couldn't have--ever willingly set foot in the grocery. But none of this would have happened if he never had Sherlock. Mycroft, or whoever Sherlock had assigned, wouldn't have been picking up John's slack if Sherlock had never been in his life.

He wants to test whatever safeguards Sherlock put in place. He wants to know how far in advance Sherlock planned to die.

He also wants Sherlock to not be dead. 

_John sprints around the corner, out onto the landing, and barrels over the edge of the fire escape. He manages to grab hold of the edge of the landing, but the assailant is running his way and he'll spot John any second now. John looks down below; he's five floors up, but maybe he can swing across the way onto the back of a delivery truck._

_But then the assailant wraps a warm, long-fingered hand around his wrist and begins to pull him up. John manages to knock loose the scarf wrapped around the bottom of his face. He recognizes him._

_"For exercise," Sherlock grins in explanation, and as soon as John can get his footing, he headbutts his absolute_ idiot _of a flatmate._

_"For exercise?" John replies. "The hell, Sherlock?" Sherlock looks obstinately bemused and ridiculous, and "Hell," John says. He hops the rail and throws his arms around Sherlock. Every muscle in his body strains to punch him and his heart is still thumping from the chase and the thought of that freefall, and he's not planning on letting Sherlock go anytime soon, but damn, he still wants to pummel him..._

_**Don't leave me** _ **.**

John's not good at being coddled. He could never take a compliment, has cleaned up his messes since as long as he can remember, and always did his own bloody paperwork. So before he's able to start imagining a life without Sherlock, he tries living without Sherlock.

"It's been forever," Sarah says with a gentle smile.

"Yeah," John says. Every day is a new forever.

"Welcome back," she says, and John walks into his new-old office.

_The serial murderer just fled through the window on a bloody zipline, and John steps up to the edge to see if he can catch a glimpse of the guy, but he jumps back when Sherlock exuberantly bounds up to the window._

_"What--" John stammers until he regains his senses. "Don't you do that! I've got a gun. I could've reacted badly!"_

_"Miss me?" Sherlock beams. He wraps his hands in his scarf and plonks onto the zipline. "I'll meet you by the second hand bookstore on Harcourt; that's where he's based out of."_

_"He'll kill you," John says._ **_Don't_ ** _**leave.**_

_"I have it on good authority that's easier said than done." Sherlock winks, turns, and jumps. His coat flares out behind him, and the last John can see of him is his pale wrists glinting in the shoddy lighting._

"Fancy a drink?" Lestrade asks, and his eyes say _do you want to cry 'til we can't feel_ _?_ John smiles tightly, robotically.

"Best have dinner first. Have you eaten yet?"

_He doesn't look into the mirror until he finishes brushing his teeth, and there's his face: long, odd, and framed by floppy curls._

_"Sherlock," John says, and his mouth moves in the mirror. Sherlock blinks back at him with the stupid, infernal smile of his, and John bends back over the sink._

**_Don't. Don't. Don't, don't,_ ** _**don't!**_

He washes his face vigorously, shaves without glancing at his reflection, and ends up nicking his face all over. But when he stands, all traces of Sherlock's face are gone. He grabs the mirror, searches his reflection for the lean lines of Sherlock's face, and skates a hand over the surface of the glass, just to make sure.

_He is John Watson._

He is terribly alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I took out a dozen ", gerunding" phrases in this first chapter alone. God help me, this fic shows my age.


End file.
